Black and white photograph of a book folded over itself
Black and white photograph of a folded book

De Natura Libris

De Natura Libris
Hampden Gallery

By Álvaro Alejandro López 
September 8 – December 15
Reception: September 17

Álvaro Alejandro López, a photographer based in Mexico City, presents a series of digital photographs that explore our physical and imagined relationships with books. De Natura Libris invites viewers to consider the book as both an object and a kind of living score — one that each reader brings to life through their own interpretation.

López’s photographs highlight the book’s material presence, focusing on its structures, textures, forms, and signs of use. At the same time, the act of reading remains deeply personal, shaped by the text itself, the feel and smell of the pages, the memories the text evokes, and the book’s aesthetic beauty.

Black and white photograph of an old book, the corner of its pages curled upward

Álvaro Alejandro López

Álvaro Alejandro López was born in Mexico City in 1988. After studying philosophy and literature, he worked for several years in the publishing world before dedicating himself to his visual, photography, and poetry projects. López’s photographic training has been mainly self-taught. From an early age, he was exposed to photography through his great-uncle, a museographer whose collection included books, prints, and documents by authors with whom he worked directly, including Edward Weston, Cartier Bresson, Robert Capa, David Seymour, and Manuel Álvarez Bravo. López’s work has been presented in Mexico, Japan, the United States, Canada, Spain, Belgium, Iceland, Switzerland, Germany, and the Netherlands. In 2019 he was selected as one of the winners of the Arte en la Red Casa de América in Madrid.